Crypto ETFs finished broadly lower in the latest session despite retaining strong monthly gains. Spot Bitcoin ETFs generally declined about 3%, while leveraged products fell roughly 6% or more; nevertheless, most remained up approximately 21% over the past month. Bitcoin fund flows were mixed but positive overall, led by $277.6 million into IBIT, partially offset by $83.6 million in outflows from FBTC and $27.2 million from GBTC. Spot Ethereum ETFs lost roughly 2.4%–2.7% for the day but remained ahead by nearly 27% over one month, with ETHA and FETH attracting $130.2 million and $56.2 million, respectively. XRP ETFs were among the weakest, falling about 5%–6%, while leveraged XRP funds dropped more than 10%; however, the category retained monthly gains of roughly 30%.
Solana ETFs also declined approximately 5%–6% on Friday, with leveraged products losing nearly 12%, but remained the strongest major category over longer periods—spot funds gained around 40% for the month and 27% over three months. Solana flows were led by $40.2 million into BSOL, highlighting continued investor demand despite the day’s pullback. For the week though, Solana was the clear leader among the major crypto exposures, gaining 13.38%, or 12.89 percentage points above the S&P 500. The move was supported by renewed institutional interest in Solana and enthusiasm surrounding staking-based investment products. Solana-related exposure benefited from expectations that staking could create an additional source of yield for institutional investors. The magnitude of the gain made Solana the strongest-performing crypto exposure by a wide margin during the week.
The cryptocurrency market was little changed on August 31, with total market capitalization rising 0.1% to $2.71 trillion as of 6:50 a.m. ET. Bitcoin gained 0.5% to $78,530, while most major Layer-1 assets traded lower, including Ethereum at $2,450, XRP at $1.38, Solana at $103.22 and Cardano at $0.20. Monero led the market’s gainers, climbing 11.9% over 24 hours and 27.9% for the week, followed by Mantle, Lighter and Uniswap, which advanced 5.8% on the day and 20.6% over seven days. Pump.fun was the sharpest decliner, falling 10.4%, while Ethena, Bittensor, Dogecoin and Cardano also weakened. Metaverse tokens were broadly negative, led by a 6.4% decline in Decentraland, while DeFi performance was mixed as strength in Uniswap and Lighter offset losses across Chainlink, Cronos and OKB.
